Postcard: Stirling

The Braveheart effect has served this small city 60 km northwest of Edinburgh well. In a mid-19th century swell of patriotism, public donations helped construct a monument in honor of William Wallace, Scotland's fiercest defender. The 67-m Gothic tower stands atop the summit of Abbey Craig, where Wallace is said to have watched the English armies gathering before he chopped his way to victory at the Battle of Stirling Bridge in 1297. But the American high school students here on a spring afternoon 710 years later are more interested in the 4-m-tall sandstone statue in the monument's parking lot. It depicts...